A: I’ll mention two approaches, similar in some sense. Seattle’s and Kansas City’s. Seattle’s approach was sort of like a Floyd Mayweather boxing match. Floyd systematically takes apart his foes early in fights with jabs and combinations, looking to outbox his opponent early in the fight. He’s not looking for the knockout early, unless it’s handed to him on a platter. If he grinds out a 12-round decision so be it, but as his conditioning takes over, he looks for his spot to land the knockout blow, seizes the opportunity and then BOOM, the hammer.
Seattle sort of took that approach to building it’s football team. They didn’t really have the opportunity to get a top notch QB early in Pete Carroll’s tenure, so they went out and added every piece outside of QB to the roster. The thought was that there would come a time when this team was truly ready to be a long-term championship contender. THAT’S when they would add the QB and hope that player was the knockout blow. They sensed being close in 2012, added Matt Flynn through FA and then drafted Russell Wilson. All of the other pieces were in place, so Wilson took over a growing team and the rest is history.
Kansas City did a similar thing, trying to win with Matt Cassel, at the same time building up the roster with Pro Bowlers through the draft. Former GM Scott Pioli built that roster and built it well but chose the wrong QB. When Cassel bottomed out in 2012 and Alex Smith was brought in, the Chiefs were in prime position to turn that thing around quickly with a QB that’s good, not great. Now, let me be clear, the Chiefs roster was well stocked with young stars ready to bust loose or young stars in their prime. That’s not the Texans right now but it can be in a couple of years.
My point? My point is that the roster isn’t at a point where any quarterback can push them back to 11 or 12 wins like Kansas City last year. So, ultimately, I’d like to see the Texans clean up the cap situation, get rid of below-value players and start to position themselves for a long-standing run. That said, to me, the priority is adding good football players on all three days of the draft at any of the need positions noted above, QB included, signing under-valued young free agents with staying power or unearthing solid players other teams quit on too early. Guys like Rob Ninkovich, Danny Woodhead, Danny Amendola, Byron Maxwell or Chris Jones. Y’all remember Jones, right?
